Black IPA/Cascadian Water Adjustments

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mikefromcu

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Trying to figure out how to get there from here...how do you balance between Residual Alkalinity for a SRM of 25ish while keeping the Chloride to Sulfate ratio down at 0.30 and 0.50?

I assume the target is still Burton-y, but there seems to be an internal conflict there...

Can you do both?
If someone out there gets it, please help and here's my water for Bobby's spreadsheet:
Ca: 72.7
Mg: 27.7
Na: 89.5
Cl: 110
SO4: 214
HCO3: 137.5

Thanks in advance!
 
AJ Delange, the brewing chemist extraordinaire, says to never add alkalinity.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php/Beer_color,_alkalinity_and_mash_pH

Using only distilled water, and 210 trials, only 4 combinations of grains fell below mash pH range. SRM is not a reliable estimator of mash pH.

So add in ANY amount of alkalinity for your water, and you'll be probably be fine without any additional alkalinity. The only way to know for sure is to measure your mash pH after dough-in. Delange also says that the pH strips commonly available are biased to be -0.3 pH from what a pH meter would read, so a reading of 4.9 would really be 5.2.
 
So you would consider the two ideal water sources for IPA to be Bull Run and Burton know that Burton is roughly the opposite of Bull Run in every way? It seems like if those both work well, so does everything in between (all water).

Another problem with pH strips is that they have poor resolution and there is user error. Even if you identify and correct for a bias, I consider the narrow range ones to be not accurate enough for measuring mash pH.

When I used them I found myself trying them under different light sources and basically trying to justify what I thought the pH would be based on spreadsheets. This is dangerous, but it is human nature and we'll all do it. When I figured out what I was doing I bought a pH meter. I now think about water much less and my beer is better.
 
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